


Reynolds Numbers

by Zooey_Glass



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, techtalk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-01
Updated: 2008-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:25:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooey_Glass/pseuds/Zooey_Glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash talks fuel cell physics. Zoe is suitably impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reynolds Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a birthday gift for Sarahetc, January 2008.
> 
> Betaed by the lovely Parenthetical.
> 
> Apologies to the scientific-minded for any injuries done to the noble discipline of physics. Science-y stuff cribbed from the Wikipedia article on [Reynolds numbers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number) and the paper [Numerical simulation and optimization on heat transfer and fluid flow in cooling channel of liquid rocket engine thrust chambers](http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/1820230804.html), by Qiuwang Wang _et al_. Yes, really.

'...so you see, if you're looking to get a good variant thrust you can't do better than these, but I can't see my way clear to giving you them for less'n a hundred platinum.' The dealer finishes up his spiel with a big smile, bad teeth jutting out every which way, and Zoe can't say as she understood even half of his technical talk, but she learnt how to read that kind of friendly when she was still in pigtails. Maybe all the figures he's been quoting mean something, and maybe not, but she's damn sure the only thing he means by them is to dazzle them into paying well over the odds.

'_Ai ya_, yes, it's good to have some real power behind your flying.' Wash returns the man's smile with a broad one of his own, and sweet mother, it figures that her husband's good nature is enough to make him actually believe this crook. Zoe steps forward to set them both straight, hand ready to go to her gun just in case she needs to underline how serious she is, but then Wash claps the dealer on the shoulder and says, all cheery-like, 'Funny thing, though, I looked over the batch reports for these and the Reynolds numbers are definitely nudging up towards the high end, there. And with the copper channelling, well, the heat transfer's just not what I'd like...'

Wash keeps right on going, and if the dealer's science talk was over Zoe's head, well, this might as well be in a foreign language for all she can make of it. The dealer's still got a smile plastered across his face, but it's taken on a desperate quality, and by the time he's shaken hands on the deal two minutes later he's started to look like he's actually in pain. Zoe can't wonder at that, being as how they've just walked away with a good half of his stock at seventy platinum a unit.

Wash keeps on babbling about the fuel cells after they get out of the compound, giving Zoe the run-down on the specs until the fast pace she sets is too much even for his practically endless capacity for speech. When they get back to the ship he starts all over again, filling Mal in on the deal between his gasps for breath while Zoe stows their cargo quick as if half the Alliance were on their tails. She snaps the fasteners down over the last crate and cuts him off mid-sentence. 'Need to talk to my husband, Cap'n. Privately.'

* * *

She practically frogmarches Wash to their bunk, keeping her mouth shut and her face steady while he looks startled and then just a little bit guilty, like he's worried she's mad about him stepping in while she was brokering the deal. Zoe doesn't give him any indication to the contrary, just backs him up against the wall next to their bed, pinning his wrist still while his pulse flutters under her fingers.

'Reynolds numbers?' she demands.

'Determine - the - flow conditions,' is all he gets out before she's licking a long stripe down his neck.

Zoe lets go of his wrist and starts unbuttoning his shirt, sucking and kissing at each new inch of skin as it appears. She grazes her teeth against his nipple, licking the hurt away afterwards while Wash groans and thrusts up helplessly against her thigh.

'Go on,' she says.

'They -_oh_ \- they measure force -' he gasps out, and the rest of his words are lost in the moan he lets out as Zoe closes her mouth around his cock. She takes a moment to appreciate the feel of it, heavy heat against her tongue, and then she's sliding down, feeling him tremble with the effort not to thrust up hard, her cunt already pooling wet and ready.

She pulls off and kisses back up his body, crushes her mouth against his. Her skin's hot and tight, vision bright with the need to just be naked with him, right now, and he's her husband and this is their space, so she does, ripping off his clothes and her own while he gasps and touches her skin with hands and lips and tongue.

Zoe bears him backwards onto the bed and fucks down onto him, wet and slow, lets him see her reach down to touch herself. When she brings her hand back up to stroke his cheek, let him smell the scent of her clinging heavy and sweet on her fingers, he looks at her wide-eyed and happy and says, 'Why -?'

'I like a man who's good at what he does,' she says. She bucks down hard, driving herself against him, and Wash cries out and surges up to meet her, and he is _good_ at what he does.


End file.
